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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25082080">To Preserve the Poor Body in Life</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously'>ambiguously</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Forced Marriage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 04:01:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,072</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25082080</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey is a prisoner of the First Order. The only way to win her freedom is to marry the Supreme Leader.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>101</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Just Married Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>To Preserve the Poor Body in Life</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isilloth/gifts">Isilloth</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rey struggles with her bonds, but there's no give. Grumbling, because it's easier to be angry than to give into her fear, she rests uncomfortably on her knees. Her guards don't look at her, and she's already tried using the mind trick on them.</p><p>This isn't the first time she's been a prisoner of the First Order. They know her ways, and she knows theirs.</p><p>She also knows she's not alone this time. Out there, somewhere, her friends are alive and working on a plan to free her. In here, nearby, someone who isn't a friend and isn't quite an enemy is finding his thoughts obsessively drawn back to her in this cell. One of them will rescue her, assuming she doesn't find a way to rescue herself first.</p><p>The door to her cell slides open. She's unsurprised to see Kylo Ren enter the tiny room. "Leave us," he says to the guards, who are only too happy to obey.</p><p>Rey stares at him, and feels him stare back, the weight of his gaze as heavy as the binders on her wrists.</p><p>"If you've come to kill me, I'll hold still to make it easier for you."</p><p>"I like it when you move." He waves one hand. The binders fall away from her. "Why didn't you free yourself?"</p><p>She massages her wrists. "I had no place to run yet. Removing the binders would have encouraged your men to tie me with something I couldn't have so easily removed." Kylo knows she can do this. Why would he order she be bound this way?</p><p>He hears the thought, and an image appears in her mind, shadowed and worried. There are other forces at play in the First Order. Kylo Ren stands as the Supreme Leader in name only. His subordinates are working against him in ways he cannot completely counter. They plan to kill her merely because Kylo has ordered she be left alive and unharmed.</p><p>Rey blinks away the knowledge. They speak to one another this way from across star systems. Here in the same room the thoughts press in clearly and she can't detect the faintest trace of a lie.</p><p>"It's not all you wanted."</p><p>"No."</p><p>Want underlines his thoughts, as it so often does. Rey can't deny the same has been inside her own mind almost since the day they met. They've given in to passion across the link more than once, Rey rising from the unusual coupling to hate herself, knowing she'd return to him again. Kylo's self-hatred is part of all his thoughts, and she can never pick out if any belongs to guilt about sleeping with his worst enemy.</p><p>"You could free me."</p><p>"No," he says in the same tone. "That would undermine my position. I can't risk it."</p><p>"You'd rather let them murder me."</p><p>His eyes focus on her face, drifting over her features. They can't hide from each other inside their minds. She's heard his emotions countless times. He might destroy her someday in battle, anger driving them both to the brink and the only question then would be who had the advantage for one crucial second. He won't let her die. The man she calls Kylo, and sometimes feels inside her thoughts as Ben, loves her in his own twisted way, as Rey in turn loves him in a fashion she doesn't dare try to explain to her friends, or Force help her, Ben's mother.</p><p>"There's a third option." He bends down to her. It's not lost on Rey that he is on one knee as he brings his face even with hers. "I can place you into a position even my enemies dare not touch you."</p><p>Rey's stomach squirms. It's what he's been asking of her in one way or another since they defeated Snoke and his guards, what part of her has seen in her dreams as her destiny, only to awaken in fear and terror.</p><p>"It frees you from this prison and saves your life." His eyes are fixed on hers. "But only if you agree. This won't work if you resist."</p><p>Rey's jaw sets. "Kill me."</p><p>"You don't want that. Nor do I. As my prisoner, you'll spend your final days here until one of Pryde's men poisons you. As my," he breathes, "as my wife, you would be as free as you can be aboard my ship."</p><p>It's a terrible bargain, and one she has little choice in. "How?"</p><p>"The ship's captain comes in and says a handful of words. Unless you want the full Alderaanian wedding regalia," he adds with a quirk of his mouth. Rey can't even picture that.</p><p>"Words are fine," she replies in a clipped voice. She'll marry him now, as much as it pains her, as much as part of her soul has wanted this in a far different circumstance in a far different life where Ben Solo never fell, but found her and loved her. How many other women go to their weddings with similar regrets, she wonders.</p><p>The captain is a nervous man who shoots Kylo terrified glances, stuttering through the words of a less than civil ceremony in her crowded cell. "Supreme Leader," he asks, "are you sure?"</p><p>"Finish and go," says Kylo, and Rey watches dully as the man gives what passes for his blessing. As soon as he's done, he excuses himself, believing Kylo Ren has a dreadful purpose for his new bride. Rey knows his purposes far better, letting herself be escorted out of her cell and through the corridors of his flagship as a voice announces the happy news over the ship's speakers.</p><p>Kylo brings her to a part of the ship she can only assume are the officers' quarters, and pulls her into a large, unusually bright room. From the decoration alone, she knows where she is.</p><p>He drops her arm as soon as the door closes, and goes to one of his displays. Most of what he owns appears to be weapons, or odd junk, even a melted and scarred helmet she can't help but recognize. Kylo finds what he's looking for in a small arrangement of jewelry. It's a ring, forged of a metal she can't identify on sight. The face has an intricate carving, as does the circumference, etched with tiny flowers. Without asking, he places it on her finger.</p><p>"You're joking."</p><p>"Proof," he says, and she can't hide the gasp as he strokes her hand before letting go. "We had the wedding. You wear my ring. You're safe."</p><p>"Yours?" She looks at it with doubt.</p><p>"A family heirloom from Naboo."</p><p>She won't ask how he obtained it. Her hand drops to her side. "This is a farce."</p><p>He shrugs. To her shock, he takes a seat on a small couch and for all the world, looks like he's relaxing. "This is better than finding you dead in the morning. No one gets to kill you but me." And he doesn't want her dead. She knows that as well as she knows her own thoughts.</p><p>Instead of replying, Rey examines the room, and sees only one bed. They've slept together before, but the thought turns her stomach now. Through the bond, she senses he's attracted to her right now, but not enough to pursue the matter. He glances up at her from his seat. "There's more than enough room to bring in a second bed if you prefer to sleep alone." He doesn't need to reassure her. He knows she can read his intentions as easily as reading her own name printed on a screen. Nevertheless, he says aloud, "I have no interest in forcing you. You know that."</p><p>She sits on the other end of the couch. This is shock, she understands. Her life has been upended abruptly and it will take time for her to adjust. Her goal hasn't changed. She needs to escape. Her friends will be planning a rescue.</p><p>"I can hear you, you know." He tilts his head at her.</p><p>"I know."</p><p>"Let them try."</p><p>When the ship's lights dim to night mode, Kylo allows her the bed, folding his long body into the constrictive couch. Rey feels her own muscles cramp in sympathy. "Just come to bed."</p><p>"You don't want me there."</p><p>"Get into bed, Ben," she tells him, irritated and expecting the use of his other name to goad him. Instead, he joins her silently, his body clad in a thin black bodysuit. Rey hasn't removed her clothes. She watches him warily, but his mind is open to her and she hears him nod off into self-recriminating dreams.</p>
<hr/><p>It's the middle of the ship's dark night. She doesn't know which one slips from dreams into waking first, doesn't know who finds whose mouth. She isn't entirely sure if she's awake at all or only sharing an intimate dream with her worst enemy, who is also her husband, and here inside this bond, the man she loves.</p><p>He slides into her, thick and warm. The effervescence of his pleasure bubbles through her as both drift between the mental world and the reality of his too-firm bed. This isn't their first time, thanks to the link, but it is the first time they have both been in the same room. As she kisses him, she knows it will be the first time she doesn't hate herself after they finish.</p>
<hr/><p>In the morning, her friends rescue her, just as she knew they would. The attack is strategic and swift, blowing a hole in one deck of the Star Destroyer. Rey makes her way to the new exit and half-jumps, half-falls into the open deck of the waiting ship. Chewie grabs her. Poe is too busy flying, and Finn is too busy shooting the dorsal cannon.</p><p>Rey had no doubts at all. For a moment, she feels the tug of Ben's mind against hers, then clamps down on her own mental shields before she gives away the location of the Resistance's latest base.</p><p>She's welcomed back with quick hugs and a long debriefing. Only Leia spies the heavy ring on her hand, and she doesn't ask about it while the others are in the room.</p><p>Later, they're alone, and Rey knows what she's going to ask. She heads off the question with her own: "Is this yours?"</p><p>"In theory, probably. It belonged to my birth mother's family. I saw it once when I visited Naboo with Ben. I won't ask how you managed to acquire it." There's a heaviness in her voice that wounds Rey.</p><p>She slips it off her finger, but Leia presses it back into her hand. "He has the right to give it to you as a gift if that's what he wanted to do."</p><p>Rey can't find the words to tell Leia why he did. The older woman's sad eyes tell her she already understands. "I'll hold onto it," Rey tells her, sliding the ring back into place.</p><p>Leia nods. "You know, my wedding with Han wasn't exactly orthodox either."</p><p>"It wasn't really a wedding."</p><p>"Wasn't it? I've found what really matters is how you treat the aftermath. My wedding wasn't typical, but we both knew it counted to us, and we did everything in our power to make it work out."</p><p>"Han wasn't trying to kill you and all your friends."</p><p>"No, though when he first met us, he'd have sold us all out for fifty credits. He changed. Spending time around the right people, or the wrong ones, can change a person in ways they don't themselves understand." She looks at Rey. "I barely understand the bond you have with Ben, and I won't ask you to keep using it to get through to him." Her hands find Rey's, and she squeezes, rubbing the ring. "But I can say I think he is changing because of the time he spends with you. And I'm glad."</p><p>'Glad' isn't the first word that comes to Rey's mind but she accepts Leia's words. Lying in her own bunk that night, she strokes the surface of the ring, feeling the play of the carving against her fingers. Inside her mind, she senses her husband's presence, restful as he brushes comfortably up against her thoughts. He could nudge her into more, and she would agree.</p><p>She remembers the words the captain mumbled her through, and thinks across their bond: "Till death."</p><p>"And beyond," he replies with a sleepy promise.</p>
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